Tuesday, November 22

Fragment 27

I've hit a dead end. I don't know where else to look for my grandmother. I don't know anything. All I have are these fragments and starting here, they skip around a lot. I don't know if I can make sense of them. I'll try.

I ran through the stacks to see what had made the noise, why Canto
had yelled out. Was it the Slender Man again? Was I running right
towards him?

No. As I emerged into the center of the library, I saw him. The man
from the pharm, the man who had saved us from the drones. He was
standing in the middle of the room looking at Canto and I saw that
there was a symbol on the back of his jacket – the same symbol that
was on the cover of Beware of Faded Giants. A circle with an x
through it.

"Can I help you?" I asked loudly.

The man turned around and suddenly I realized my mistake. In the
pouring rain, I had looked back and seen a man, but right here, I can
could tell she was female. She was tall and thin, with black hair cut
short and with her hood up, she could very easily be mistaken for
male.

She also wore a hard expression and held a curved sword in one hand.
"Are you the Stray?" she asked.

"You know who we are," I said. "You helped us back at
the pharm. You've been following us. Why?"

"I am Omega," she said. And if Canto looked shocked before,
this expression made that one seem calm.

"Holy shit," he said. "The Omega? I mean, we
were told stories, but I thought you were dead. I mean, there was all
this contradictory stuff, but-"

"It's a title, not a name," she said. "I've been
following you since the Church. I was a member there. In fact, I
installed the computer you hacked."

"And you call yourself Omega?" I said walking around her.

"It is to honor the original Omega, the Alpha Omega," she
said, still holding his sword sideways, as if anticipating an attack.
"A group of us who meta at the Church decided to live like he
lived. We called ourselves Omega. And we helped people. Until last
week."

"What happened last week?" I asked.

"Our group was slaughtered," she said. "Every member
was killed by men in bowler hats."

I looked at Canto. "The Golconda," I said. "We've had
problems with them, too."

"Good," Omega said and lowered her sword. "Then we can
help one another. I have information you need and you can help me to
get vengeance."

"We don't know who hired the Golconda," I said. "And I
don't know how you can help us."

"I installed the chemical computer," she said. "You
don't think I didn't take precautions? How do you think I found you
here? There were nanotags on the computer itself. And a tracefile in
the Archive."

"You know where the Archive is?" I asked.

"At every single moment," she said. "You will help me
and I will help you."